


Love, Death, and the Winter

by rivendellrose



Category: Babylon 5
Genre: Day of the Dead, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 18:41:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9136723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rivendellrose/pseuds/rivendellrose
Summary: Originally posted on Livejournal in October of 2006, and also known as "Day of the Dead Alternate Scene #2." (See alsoDay of the Dead Alternate Scene #1, "Voice from the Past".)I find it impossible to believe that Marcus wouldn't have appeared to Susan in this episode if Claudia Christian hadn't left the show. And in my mind, that's exactly what happened, darn it.





	

Winter comes to Russia like the fall of an axe on the chop-block. Although they are for the most part a child’s memories, Susan can still recall how quickly the weather shifted from bright sun and balm in September to freezing nights in October. And now, even without the falling leaves to warn her, even though she hasn’t been home in almost more years than she spent there to begin with, she can feel an answering chill settling on her bones.

 _Now is the winter of our discontent_ , she thinks, and snorts at her own melodrama. At least the war is over. At least Babylon 5 has felt a few precious months of relative peace. For all of that, she supposes, personal malaise and a chill in her bones are a small price to pay.

Maybe it would have been a better idea to leave, to go with the Warlock-class ship that was offered to her, go out to the rim and never look back to familiar walls and friendly, knowing faces. Delenn still tries to talk to her about what happened - more often, Susan has noticed, since Lennier abandoned the station for training as a ranger - and Susan still puts her off each time, making a mask of ice and stone to cover her doubts. Everyone else knows better than to try, but she can still see the occasional glint of knowing sympathy. If she had left, that wouldn’t have happened. A new crew wouldn’t have known to feel sorry for her, and there are plenty of mornings when she wishes she could have that.

If she’s honest, she’s not even sure why she did stay. Inertia, she supposes, and pushes away the thought that there might have been a touch of loyalty, of comfort, of fondness for the damned station involved. There’s a feeling of pieces fitting together here, though - of owning and of being owned by the station and all its problems. It’s an impossible hell-hole, and a contrary part of her likes that, likes mastering all its difficulties and endless disasters. It’s ironic that she’s had a longer and, in many ways, more successful relationship with this impossible place than she ever has with another human being, and yet it’s appropriate to her attitude. Steel and titanium are easier to manage than flesh and blood and rampant emotions, and with the cold vacuum just outside, it’s easy to imagine the station as frozen, as ice. As something easily understood, like the winter nights she knew back home.

Winter is a good time for these thoughts. It’s also a good time for holing up someplace and drinking, and that’s a grand old Russian tradition that Susan hopes to follow through on tonight.

She passes a number of Brakiri as she returns to her quarters, hanging up decorations for whatever weird religious festival they have tonight. The notion of selling them part of the station still amuses her. _Are you sure you only want this bit?_ she was tempted to ask. _Take the whole damned thing, if you want it._ Like the old joke - ‘Take my wife. Please.’ It’s not really that funny, but it’s been a long enough day that she snickers about it anyway as she digs out the most recent bottle of vodka from the cabinet in her kitchenette. With Delenn and John still stopping by occasionally - ostensibly on business, but she suspects it’s a ploy to check on how she’s dealing with the stress - she’s taken to putting it away every morning.

She’s halfway out of her uniform and a few sips into the bottle before she finds the sugar skull tucked away in the pocket of her trousers. It looks like it’s laughing at her, and it’s lucky that she’s in just the right mood to appreciate the morbid little thing. She sets it on the table as she passes by, shucking trousers and tossing them onto the couch on the way to the shower. Some culture on Earth has a similar festival of the dead, she’s fairly sure. It ought to be Russia, but she’s certain it isn’t. She’d remember something that appropriate to her temperament.

A late dinner starts to sound appealing as the hot water pebbles down onto her back, and she wonders what food she has stowed away in the cabinets when she hears something outside the bathroom. She shuts off the water - tactically speaking, it’d be better to leave it on, but habit prevents her wasting the station’s most precious resource - and steps out, pulling on her blue silk bathrobe as she does. It’s not much, and the silky fabric sticks colder than air to her wet skin, but it’s better than going up against whatever is out there completely nude. At least from a psychological standpoint.

For a moment it’s quiet, and she thinks she might have been imagining things. It’s late, and it’s been a long few weeks. But then she hears it again - someone is definitely moving out in the main living space. Only one person, she guesses, but not a small one.

“Who’s out there?”

“It’s me, Susan.”

Not many people call her that, and even if that weren’t the case it would be impossible anyway to mistake that voice... unless totally befuddled by drugs and pain, as she’d been the last time she’d heard it.

“No.” The stupid PPG is in her trousers, on the floor by the couch - a lot of good it’ll do her there. Since there’s no point in cursing her bad choices now, Susan steps around the edge of the wall and stares right into a pair of familiar, earnest blue eyes. “No,” she repeats. “You’re _dead._ ”

“Well. Yes.” He raises his arms, an exaggerated shrug of helplessness. “You’ve got me there. But... I’m also here.” A moment of silence, then he raises one hand and tries a smile. “Hi?”

“No, but you...” He’s supposed to be locked away in a cryo-chamber in Medlab, frozen at her personal request - Stephen had bowed to her hopes that someday somebody might figure out a way to resuscitate him. And now he’s standing in the middle of her quarters, dressed in the same slightly tatty brown robes, hands clasped in front of him like a schoolboy trying not to fidget when he’s questioned by the headmistress. This can’t be happening. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I’m here to see you.”

No one else would think that was a sufficient answer. “I’m hallucinating.”

He smiles, and something in the pit of Susan’s stomach clenches. “Maybe we both are.”

“So... the Brakiri were serious about this whole ‘Day of the Dead’ thing, then?”

“Apparently so.” He shrugs. “I don’t know much about it, myself - I heard a little from some of the other rangers, but I never figured on needing it. After all...”

“You planned to live forever.” She doesn’t want to laugh, but he’s always made it hard for her to stay composed, one way or another. Whether she wanted to yell at him to leave her alone, or to smile and laugh and forget for just a minute that she is who and what she is, it’s impossible not to react to Marcus. Better the former, or after the stress of the last several weeks she might just cry. Susan Ivanova does not cry, especially not in front of a ranger so half-witted he thought it worthwhile not only to spend two years pursuing her, but to kill himself to save her from the perfectly normal death of a soldier. “You _bastard._ How could you do that - what the hell was going through your head? What were you _thinking?_ ”

He doesn’t even blink at her fit of temper - probably he’s seen it too many times before. “I love you.”

She can’t decide what makes her more angry - that it’s really that simple for him, or that the statement seems to shatter the ice under the feet of her fury. Suddenly she’s back to that horrible moment, drifting back from the darkness to the sound of that voice whispering those eact words, and the slow, sickening realization of exactly what he was doing with that love. For that, at least, she owes him honesty. “Everyone who’s ever said that... I’m bad luck, Marcus. I’m sorry.”

The words don’t quite manage to come out without a hitch, and she turns half away from him.

“Not for me.” He steps forward and reaches out, touches her cheek, and for the instant before his fingers connect she’s afraid they’ll be corpse-cold, or that she won’t even feel them. But they’re just fingers - warm, solid, and callused with work and fighting. “Susan. It was my choice to make - I couldn’t stand the thought of seeing you die. I swore I’d never let anyone else I cared about die for lack of action on my part.”

Susan has no answer for this, so she moves back to irritation. Something familiar, something she can handle. “So what am I supposed to do now? Do you need food, or... I don’t know, candles, or what? Or am I just supposed... what, pray?”

“I was rather hoping we could... talk.”

His hand is still on her cheek, and she swallows almost convulsively. The intensity of his expression leaves little doubt in her mind that talking isn’t quite _all_ he has in mind. Or at least not all he’s hoping for - Marcus is too much the gentleman to _expect_ more. _I should’ve at least boffed him_ , she remembers herself telling Stephen. “’Talk?’” She raises an eyebrow.

He breaks away, smiling at the ground. “Well, since there aren’t any sunset-lit tropical beaches here for a romantic walk, I figure we’re a bit limited. You could... try to beat me at cards, or we could get drunk and maudlin at each other, but I warn you that’d probably end in me singing loud carols all night, and I’m not sure your neighbors would ever forgive you. God knows Stephen probably hasn’t forgiven _me_. You could tell me about everything that’s gone wrong on the station since I left, or...”

“You’re back from the dead for one night, and you want a progress report on the station.”

“No, but I thought it might be a bit arrogant even for me to ask for a night of unbridled, completely impossible passion straight off.” He’s clearly trying to bluster his way through. “Seemed like the sort of thing I ought to build up to, you know... Slowly. After all, you would be risking charges of necrophilia. I’m not sure they stone people for that anymore, but--”

“Marcus. Stop.”

Under the beard, he’s blushing. Actually _blushing_ , damn him, just like the virgin he is. “Sorry. I didn’t really have a lot of time to plan this, you know. It’s a do or... keep right on being dead sort of a thing.”

It’s cruel to make him twitch like this. Susan thinks for a moment - she’s been called that before, to be sure, but the idea of actually hurting Marcus doesn’t have the appeal it once might have had, back when she wanted nothing better than to shove him away, make him quit following her, stop with the silly courtship and puppy eyes. For both their sakes. But he’s already as far away as he can be, isn’t he, except for tonight? And right now he’s so real. So... alive?

“Come here.”

He steps closer, and looks completely shocked when she reaches up to run her fingers on the side of his face, along the soft prickles of his beard, and down his jaw to the soft spot above and to the side of his larynx. Understanding dawns when her fingers stay there, pressed and waiting.

“No pulse,” he supplies when he sees surprise move the cool depths of her eyes.

“None. You... really are dead.”

“I know.” He covers her hand with his, pulls it away from his neck and squeezes softly. “I understand, Susan. It’s alright.”

“What, you’re just going to come back from the dead and then let a little thing like not having a _pulse_ stop you?” Unbelievable. “So you’re dead. You’re also _here_. Unless you think you’re not up to the job, of course.”

It’s worthwhile for the way his eyes almost bug out of his head.

“It’s just one night,” she reminds him, as if either of them could forget. “But... nobody should miss out on all the fun of life, huh?” It’s lame and a little silly, talking like this, and she’s never felt more awkward about sex, not even when it was her first time. Speaking of which... “I know it’s not what you probably had in mind - I don’t have any roses, and vodka’s the best I can do for champagne. I’m still working on the four-poster bed thing, but Earth Force is--”

Apparently it doesn’t matter, because before she can finish the sentence he’s pulling her into a kiss more eager and desperate than anything she’s felt in a long time, and a feeling washes over her like standing in the sun on a freezing day.

This can’t last. But it’s damned nice while it’s here, and Susan manages, for once in her life, to convince herself to let go and enjoy the fall.

* * *

Hours later, they’re sprawled out together on her bed. A head-splitting yawn breaks her off in the middle of trying to explain the current situation with the alliance. “Sorry. It’s been... a hell of a year.”

“I know.” He kisses her forehead, and she’s amazed by how easy this is - laying, chatting in her bed, blankets twisted up around them just enough to keep warm, one of his arms draped over her, fingers tracing patterns on the smooth skin of her stomach. He hasn’t stopped touching her since their first kiss, fingers never quite lifting from her skin, just roving from one place to another. It’s like he’s reminding himself that she’s there, that he’s really here, that they’re actually together. For now. “It had already been a hell of a year when I... left.”

“Yeah.” She yawns again, too tired to hide it.

“You should sleep. You have duty tomorrow, don’t you?” When she nods, he shakes his head. “Alright. To sleep with you, _Captain_ Ivanova. I won’t have it said I disrupted the safety of the station.”

“Wha’bout you?” She barely manages to resist as he pulls the comforter up over them, smoothing it down over her shoulders and then curling his fingers in her hair. He smiles, and she realizes it must be because she’s never really shown a lot of concern for him before this. Another thing to regret.

“I’ll wake you before I leave, don’t worry. You’ve got a few hours before dawn. Cock’s crow and all that... it’s how these things work. Sleep a while.” He kisses her again, gentle and reverent.

“Oh, no. You’ve pulled this one before, Marcus, and I’m not buying it this time. I am not going to wake up just to find out that you let me sleep a little too long and d... disappeared again.”

“You think I want to leave without saying goodbye?”

“No, but I don’t trust you not to out of some... misplaced idea of chivalry. Let’s face it, Marcus, you’ve got a pattern of that.”

It wasn’t just the over-long nap on the White Star that she meant, and she could tell he got the message loud and clear. “Susan, you can’t honestly think that I could have stood by and let you die.”

“I don’t want to talk about that. And I’m _not_ going to sleep.”

She’s starting to realize how stupid this all sounds, how much it seems like she really cares about him and is afraid to have him leave again. And of course he’s going to - he has to, he’s _dead_. But if she falls asleep now she’ll wake up to an empty bed and wonder if it was all a lonely dream brought on by that icy feeling she always gets in her stomach when winter comes on. Empty and cold. She’s already going to doubt her memories, even if she doesn't sleep. Might as well give it the best shot at remembering, so long as she’s already committed herself to the inevitable fall-out of misery.

They talk for a while longer - nothing serious, just trivial bits and pieces and lengthening silences. Him trying to poke and tease her back into smiling as she feels her mood freeze over. After a few hours of this, she turns her back on him and has herself halfway convinced to order him out, demand that he leave now and get it over with, when his warm, scruffy cheek rests on her shoulder and chapped lips press a kiss on her neck.

“I’d stay forever, if I could.” Marcus’ voice tickles her skin with his impossible breath. “Some other life, maybe...”

“There’s no life but this one.”

“You can’t know that for certain.” She can feel his lips smile, his beard scratching at delicate skin. “And I think I’m just stubborn enough to find a way back to you, somehow. First time’s the hardest, right? How hard can it be to cheat death a second time? We’ll see each other again. Someday.” One last kiss touches her shoulder, the arms around her waist tighten for an instant. “In the mean time, don’t forget the message for Sheridan. I’d hate the think how miserable my afterlife could be if someone found out that didn’t get through.” He hesitates for a long moment, til she almost thinks he’s giving up. When he speaks again, his voice is barely above a whisper. “I love you. Always will.”

And then he’s gone. Again. She doesn’t even have time to punch him for saying those same damned words again. Her body knows that winter has come - as she gets up to put on her uniform and track down Sheridan, she can already feel the ice settling in.


End file.
